Emerson College Library: Visual Art: Best Bets

Multisearch

Multisearch Hacks
Get faster, more focused results with these search strategies. Applicable to Multisearch, and to other EBSCO-brand library databases.

Multisearch Help
Sometimes you need to go straight to the source. EBSCO's Help menu offers authoritative instruction on creating a strong search; auto-formatting a citation; emailing, batch-emailing, printing, or saving an article; saving articles in a temporary folder; saving a search or email alert for newly published articles on your designated topic, and more.

Art Reference

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Covers all aspects of the visual arts from prehistory to the present. Content: artist biographies, definitions of art terminology, description of art movements, and images. Includes Grove Art Online, the Oxford Companion to Western Art the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Resources in the broader Oxford Art Online may not be available. Limited to 5 simultaneous users.

Smarthistory
Smarthistory’s free, award-winning digital content unlocks the expertise of hundreds of leading scholars, making the history of art accessible and engaging to more people, in more places, than any other publisher.

Art Criticism

Give Multisearch a try! But also, these:

Project MUSE, Arts and Humanities Collection This link opens in a new window
Full text of over 100 journals in classics, culture, education, film, performing arts, history, literature, religion, and theater.
JSTOR & ArtStor This link opens in a new window
JSTOR covers many topics across the Arts and Sciences, including art history.

Selected Books

A Companion to Art Theory by Paul Smith; Carolyn Wilde
Call Number: eReference
ISBN: 058547091X
Publication Date: 2002-01-01
A survey of art theory in the context of Western visual art. It is organized chronologically so that readers can trace developments of visual art theory, from Classical and Medieval sources and modern conceptions of art, through to some contemporary theoretical preoccupations.
A Companion to Public Art [electronic resource] by Cher Krause Knight (Editor); Harriet F. Senie (Editor)
Call Number: eReference
ISBN: 9781118475331
Publication Date: 2016-07-19
The History of Art by Jean Robertson; Allison Lee Palmer; Stacey Sloboda; Deborah S. Hutton; Monica Blackmun Visonà; Cynthia Colburn; Ömür Harmansah; Eric Kjellgren; Rex Koontz; De-nin Lee; Henry Luttikhuizen
Call Number: N5300 .R6347 2021
ISBN: 9780500022375
Publication Date: 2021-08-01
"A more global, flexible way to teach art history."
Interpreting art by Sam Rose
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781800081772
Publication Date: 2022
"How do people make sense of works of art? And how do they write to make others see the same way? ...this book offers something very unlike the normal search for difference and division: it examines the general and largely unspoken norms shared by interpreters of many kinds. Ranging widely, though taking writing within the Western tradition of art history as its primary focus, Interpreting Art highlights the norms, premises, and patterns that tend to guide interpretation along the way."
Modern Art in Africa, Asia and Latin America: an introduction to global modernisms by Elaine O'Brien (Editor); Melissa Chiu (Editor); Roberto Tejada (Editor); Everlyn Nicodemus (Editor); Benjamin Genocchio (Editor); Mary K. Coffey (Editor)
Call Number: N6497 .M635 2013
ISBN: 9781444332292
Publication Date: 2012-10-01
Western Art and the Wider World by Paul Wood
Call Number: ebook
ISBN: 9781118598771
Publication Date: 2013-11-18
Western Art and the Wider World explores the evolving relationship between the Western canon of art, as it has developed since the Renaissance, and the art and culture of the Islamic world, the Far East, Australasia, Africa and the Americas.

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FLO Library Catalog

Search the FLO Library Catalog to find books and media materials.

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Museum Resources

Many art museums publish an abundance of information on their website. The following museums all have created dynamic resources that you can use to research objects, artists and art historical themes. When researching an object try to find out if it belongs in a specific museum's collection, if so visit the museum website to search for information about the object.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art
"The Timeline of Art History presents the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection via a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of global art history. Authored by the Met’s experts—predominantly made up of curators but also of conservators, scientists, and educators—the Timeline comprises 300 timelines, 930 essays, close to 7,000 objects, and a robust index."
The Getty Research Institute
The Getty provides many free resources to researchers. Including: The Open Content Program (images of art objects). The Research Portal (Access to complete digital copies of art history texts, rare books, and related literature). And many more!
Louvre Museum - Digitized Collection
"The Collections database consists of entries for more than 480,000 works in the Musée du Louvre and Musée National Eugène-Delacroix. Updated on a daily basis, it is the result of the continuous research and documentation efforts carried out by teams of experts from both museums." Explore the digitized collection of The Louvre for free.

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Visual Art